Rational strain improvement for surfactin production: enhancing the yield and generating novel structures

• Published in: Microbial cell factories Vol. 18; no. 1; p. 42
• Main Authors: Hu, Fangxiang, Liu, Yuyue, Li, Shuang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 28.02.2019; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Amino acids; Antibiotics; Bioengineering; Biological properties; Biosynthesis; Branched chain fatty acids; Chemical properties; Combinatorial analysis; Efflux; Enhanced oil recovery; Enzymes; Fatty acids; Genes; Genetic engineering; Genetic research; Genetically modified organisms; Genomics; Ligases; Microorganisms; Novels; NRPS; Peptides; Physicochemical properties; Pollutants; Production management; Proteins; Review; Structure; Surface active agents; Surfactants; Surfactin; Transcription; Transcription (Genetics); Branched chain fatty acids; Surfactin; Biosynthesis; NRPS; Structure
• ISSN: 1475-2859; 1475-2859
• DOI: 10.1186/s12934-019-1089-x

Surfactin, one of the most powerful microbial surfactants, is a lipopeptide-type biosurfactant which combines interesting physicochemical properties and biological activities. However, the high cost caused by its low productivity largely limits the commercial application of surfactin. Hence, many engineered bacterium have also been used to enhance surfactin biosynthesis. This review briefly summarizes the mechanism of surfactin biosynthesis, highlighting the synthesis pathway of N-terminally attached fatty acids, and outlines the main genetic engineering strategies for improving the yield and generating novel structures of surfactin, including promoter engineering, enhancing efflux systems, modifying the transcriptional regulatory genes of surfactin synthase (srfA), genomics and transcriptomics analysis, non ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) domain and combinatorial biosynthesis. Finally, we discuss the future prospects of the research on surfactin.